Medieval Dynasties: How To Stay On The Throne | HistoryExtra Podcast - HistoryExtra
"[On choosing a bride] In some parts of Europe, and at some periods, for example, in the early medieval kingdom of the Franks, or in Ireland, or in early Scandinavia, the family pattern was very different from elsewhere in the Kings would have sex with lots of women, not necessarily their wives, they might have wives of different statuses, but they also had other relationships. And so they're quite often have a lot of sons. And in those societies, any of those sons could claim Royal rights. They had royal blood. Didn't really matter on the status of the, of the marriage of their parents or the lack of marriage of their parents. That's one, one system, if you can call it as a system.
More commonly, in in the most of Europe and most of what I talked about, people had to marry according to the law of the church, and the church specified a) That you were only meant to have one wife at a time. B) If you wanted to get rid of her, you could only do so according to the church's rules. Those were, those were very important things. And c) For much of the Middle Ages, you had a very restricted choice of who you could marry, because you weren't allowed to marry cousins. And that was, that was for a period, that was a very extensive rule, which would cut out a very large number of people.
And then you had to decide, okay, am I going to marry a local aristocrat, or am I going to marry a foreign princess? Am I or my son depending on who is negotiating the marriage. And they would have different consequences. And that's actually debated in the medieval period. There's a little bit later than the medieval period, this, this was discussed actually in early modern Russia. And there's a dialogue between two characters, one who's arguing the Tsar should marry one of his subjects. And the other guy says no, the Tsar should marry a foreign princess. And the first guy says, I can give you 40 reasons why he should marry one of his subjects. And the other guy says I can give you 400 reasons why he should marry a foreign princess...
If you married into your own aristocracy, you'd immediately be allied with an aristocratic family and kings had to rule with the support of their aristocracy. But on the other hand, you'd also be embedding yourself in all the factional fightings and rivalries of the native aristocracy which could be very destabilizing. On the other hand, you might want to choose a foreign princess. And that way, you'd be creating a bond with other kingdoms because you were, *something* in *something*. In laws as well as a wife. And in fact, one of the things that I, didn't steal it, I borrowed it with his permission, a map in the book, which a German scholar made, showing you in diagrammatic forms through arrows and circles, which, which courts married, which members of families from other courts. And it's a very interesting, it's a very interesting pattern.
And sometimes, of course, I mean, England is a good example of this choosing foreign brides. Because between 1066 and 1464, you know, a very long period of time, no English King, married an English woman. It just wasn't the pattern. So it was the foreign bride was the norm. And I discussed to some extent there the, that has cultural consequences as well, not just, not just political ones, because those foreign brides often bring with them foreign customs, foreign habits. And sometimes they're resented. And of course, they're often sent abroad when they're quite young. And I have a section on homesick queens, because these, these are teenage girls being sent away from their own world and their own family to a foreign world...
The Dukes of Burgundy who were, in the late Middle Ages, they almost created a kingdom in between France and Germany. It was a very close run thing that they didn't. They were famous for having illegitimate children. And these illegitimate children. didn't try and cover it up. They actually had the title, Bastard of Burgundy. When one of them goes to university, in the matriculation, his name is down as Bastard of Burgundy. And the top one was called the Grand Bastard of Burgundy. And they had it in the heraldry...
The second part of the book is called a sense of dynasty. And that's about the way that these families created a sense of political tradition and political unity because families are not only biological units are they? They’re social and cultural units and legal units in many ways. And the heraldry when it became, heraldry started in the 12th century. By the late Middle Ages, all the great aristocratic families have their coats of arms, and they have ways of showing on their coats of arms, whether they're legitimate or not. The bend sinister, which is a big diagonal going across the coat, and I've actually got a picture in the book of one of these great French princes. He’s not a Burgundian, he’s a French Prince, and he is illegitimate. And it shows the coat of arms, the royal, the coat of arms of France, with this great bend going across it. And that's on the hangings in his hall where he's having dinner. So it's not as if he's hiding the fact that he's illegitimate. That's why I called it the selection bastard culture because it's admitted and accepted in some times and places…
We actually have an account from some Eastern European nobles from Bohemia who are visiting the Burgundian court, and they're surprised that the illegitimate all sit down with the legitimate sons, and they say it's not what they do at home. So it can't be universal, but it's very clearly in many parts of Europe just an accepted fact...
I have a chapter called pretenders and returners. And I call them returners because many of these people are people who turn up and they say, you think King X died in battle 10 years ago. No, I escaped. I am King X, I have come back, right? And there are sort of quite a few cases of that. And they are, of course, they’re characteristic of the dynastic world, because these people are turning up, and they're not saying, oh, you know, I was voted for or I've got a divine commission from God. They're saying, I am this person. My blood is the blood of the dynasty. And you have these people coming back.
There's a famous example in which a man who's been in Flan, the county of Flanders in the north of France, as it was then, it was part of the Kingdom of France, the Count of Flanders had gone out east. He’d been engaged in the conquest of Constantinople, he'd become emperor of Constantinople. And everyone said he was then killed in battle. So, about getting on for 20 years later, someone turns up in Flanders, and people start saying, oh, it's Baldwin, this count who was supposed to have been killed, and he's back. And, of course, this is a claim, isn't it? It's a claim that he's the real count.
The county is being ruled by Baldwin’s daughter at the time. So she has to make up her mind whether to recognize her dad or not. And this immediately, two things kind of come together here. One is the politics, because there were quite a few people in the nobility in Flanders who were opposed to the countess, and of course, this person, whether or not it's the real Baldwin or the false Baldwin, right? He can be a tool of opposition, so they gravitate towards him. So you've got this oppositional politics. And then also it raises all sorts of interesting questions about identity. How do people think about identity? How do you tell whether it's him? And there's all sorts of little, these stories, all sorts of things crop up, you know, sometimes it's a scar or you know, or something like that. He had that scar. Sometimes it's what they know and what they don't know. In the case of Baldwin, he was obviously not briefed very well, because he goes to meet the King of France. And he can't tell him when he last met him, and when he was knighted, and what city he was knighted in and so he's not got the knowledge that he should have. So he should have been better briefed, and in fact, things go downhill from there, and he's eventually hanged. But for a while, he's a serious contender. The King of England writes to him saying, oh, we're so glad you're back. Would you like to join us in war against the King of France again? You know, so that these things are taken quite seriously.
Richard the Second of England was supposedly murdered by his usurper Henry the Fourth. And they went to great pains to make sure that people thought he was dead. They brought his body to London, and they let it be displayed with the face showing so that everyone could see he was dead. But that didn't quite do it, because there were still people who said, no, no, Richard the Second escaped, and he's in Scotland or somewhere, right? So you've got this tool of opposition’...
‘The dramas and arrangements of these royal families that we've talked about, has left a deep mark on Europe that can still be felt today’...
‘I think the clearest mark that's left is the existence of certain states. France and Germany, for example, didn't exist in the early Middle Ages. They came into existence gradually, when a division of power was made between Charlemagne’s grandsons in the ninth century. There was no difference between those two halves. It's true that there were more German speakers in the eastern half and, and more romance speakers later French speakers in the, in the western half, but that wasn't particularly significant and it wasn't absolute anyway. And those two countries came into existence because of a family arrangement in the ninth century. That's why France and Germany exist.
Portugal, similarly. The very first female monarch in Western Europe as distinct from Byzantium was Urraca, Queen of Castile and Leon, and she had an illegitimate sister called Teresa. And Teresa was ambitious, and Teresa wanted to be queen of something as well. Her husband had been the count of Porto, Porto. And so she eventually got herself called queen. And what's she going to be queen of? She was going to be queen of Portugal. So Portugal comes into existence as a separate country in the 12th century, because the illegitimate sister is jealous of the legitimate sister for being the queen and wants to be a queen, too...
The descendants of Ferdinand and Isabella weren't called kings of Spain. They were called kings of Castille, Aragon, etc, etc. And I think it's only in the 19th century, they start being called Kings of Spain...…
The thing I remember being most struck by is just this one document. And this is a female ruler, she's, she's called Petronella. She's Queen of Aragon, and she is married to the Count of Barcelona. This is also one of these fusions. This is how Aragon and Barcelona come to be part of the same Kingdom in the late Middle Ages. She's a 15 year old girl. She's Queen of Aragon, and I came across a charter that she issues a document that begins I, Petronella Queen of Aragon, lying in labor at Barcelona, so she's issuing this charter while she's in labor. And then she goes on, if it is a girl that comes out of my womb, and then she makes all the arrangements for that. And then she says, if it is a boy that comes out of my womb, she makes all the arrangements for that, because, of course, she doesn't know. And then she gives 2000 gold coins to the churches of Aragon and Barcelona to pray for her. Because this is a first pregnancy, right? She's a 15 year old girl, and she really wants someone to pray for her and I've never ever come across a document in which someone is actually issuing a document while they're in labor'"
